The Debrief: Building a SaaS Tool To Leave Your Job

Welcome to The Debrief. This week we interviewed Saquib, a photography enthusiast and product developer who has started a side hustle building and running a SaaS company. If you didn’t catch it, feel free to check it out here before diving into this edition.

In this mid-week newsletter, we are going to investigate what we covered in our interview and breakdown the key takeaways and share some actionable advice for you to work on in your business venture.

Each debrief is designed to give you something to work on each week based off the advice given by our featured entrepreneur.

Let’s get into it!

Ai SaaS Developer Side Hustle

Key takeaways:

1. Identify a niche that addresses a real need: Saquib created a platform to fill a gap in the market—affordable, high-quality AI-generated imagery for businesses. By targeting a specific pain point (the cost and effort of traditional photoshoots), he crafted a solution that resonated with his audience, emphasising the importance of finding a niche that you’re passionate about and can deeply understand.

2. Focus on marketing and audience building from day one: One of the biggest lessons learned was the need for a strong go-to-market strategy. Saquib emphasises that even the best products won’t succeed without early marketing efforts. Building awareness, generating buzz, and validating the idea through customer feedback should be prioritised over perfecting the product itself.

3. Success means freedom and flexibility: Success isn't just about financial goals but also about achieving a lifestyle that offers flexibility. Building a business that operates efficiently without demanding constant attention is key. Entrepreneurs should strive to create something that allows them the freedom to live life on their terms while ensuring sustainable growth.

My thoughts:

Entry Requirements:

• Technical Skills: Developing a platform that allows non-developers to fine-tune AI image models requires significant technical knowledge in AI, machine learning, and image processing. The interviewee, being a robotics engineer, has the expertise needed to develop the AI and integrate it into a user-friendly interface. However, for someone without this background, entering the space would require either learning these skills or partnering with or hiring a development team proficient in AI and software development. Fortunately, once the platform is created, it’s designed to be accessible to non-technical users, meaning the target audience doesn’t need to possess this level of expertise.

• Financial Investment: Building the platform from scratch requires upfront investment in technology—specifically for AI model development, cloud storage, and computing power. Many AI models require substantial computational resources, which can be costly depending on the complexity and size of the models. However, cloud services like AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure provide scalable solutions, where costs are based on usage. For a bootstrapper, the free or low-cost tiers offered by these platforms could be used during early development stages. Once the platform is operational, the ongoing costs should be relatively low, making the business financially accessible after initial setup.

• Software/Hardware Needs: In the development phase, the platform will require access to high-powered hardware for training AI models. This could be mitigated by using cloud services, but there will still be a need for decent computing power for testing and running the models. For users, on the other hand, the platform is likely web-based, which means they only need internet access and basic hardware to upload images and use the AI models.

Time requirements:

• Development Time: Building an AI-powered platform is not a quick process. It requires designing and training AI models, integrating the models into an intuitive user interface, and thoroughly testing the platform to ensure it works across a range of use cases. Depending on the complexity, this process could take months or even longer. However, once the core technology is built, the day-to-day time commitment will significantly reduce, allowing the founder to focus more on marketing and scaling.

• Marketing Effort: Saquib learned the importance of marketing early on. This part of the business requires constant attention. Building an audience from scratch takes time and dedication, especially for a SaaS product. Marketing activities could include social media campaigns, blogging, SEO, and community engagement. In particular, developing relationships with potential customers and gathering feedback early in the process is critical. It’s a time-consuming task but crucial for growth, especially in the early stages when you need to generate awareness and trust in the brand.

• Ongoing Maintenance: While the platform may not require much day-to-day input once it’s fully developed, some regular tasks will still need attention. Software updates, bug fixes, server management, and feature improvements based on user feedback will need ongoing but manageable time investment. The SaaS nature of the platform allows updates to be pushed centrally, so these can be planned and scheduled efficiently, making the maintenance work less burdensome compared to other types of businesses.

Demand:

• Growing Market: There is a high demand for visual content, especially in industries like e-commerce, fashion, social media, and advertising. Businesses are increasingly reliant on high-quality imagery for their marketing and online presence. However, traditional photoshoots are expensive, time-consuming, and logistically challenging for small businesses. AI-generated imagery is becoming a practical alternative, and the rise of tools that make it accessible to non-developers is timely. This platform addresses a pain point by offering professional-quality images at a fraction of the cost, making it highly appealing to businesses with limited budgets for traditional photography.

• Niche Focus: The platform’s focus on model photography, headshots, fashion shoots, and e-commerce product photography fills a specific gap. Rather than competing in the broader, more saturated market of general AI tools, it caters to a defined audience with very specific visual content needs. E-commerce, in particular, requires a constant flow of new product photos, and the ability to generate these photos using AI (without hiring models or photographers) presents a major cost-saving and efficiency advantage. This targeted niche increases the likelihood of strong demand, especially as businesses realise they can scale their visual content more easily.

Scalability:

• Highly Scalable SaaS Model: As a SaaS business, scalability is built into the model. Once the platform is created, there are minimal additional costs associated with serving more customers. This is one of the major benefits of software businesses, especially AI-powered platforms that rely on cloud infrastructure. The platform can handle more users simply by expanding server capacity, which can be done on-demand with cloud services. The scalability potential is huge—thousands of customers could use the platform without significantly increasing overhead.

• Low Operational Costs: After the initial development investment, operational costs will largely revolve around cloud computing expenses, customer support, and marketing. As more users join, these costs can be distributed across a larger base, improving profit margins. Furthermore, the ability to offer subscriptions or pay-per-use models ensures that revenue grows predictably as the user base expands. This business model, paired with low ongoing costs, creates the potential for high margins, making it an attractive opportunity for growth without requiring a corresponding increase in effort or resources.

Overall, this business is a strong option for someone seeking to leave their 9-to-5 job. Although the technical barrier to entry is high, the founder has demonstrated that with the right skills or team, building such a platform is feasible. Once the core platform is built, the scalability of the SaaS model offers the freedom to grow the business while maintaining flexibility in terms of time and location, aligning well with a digital nomad lifestyle.

With the increasing demand for cost-effective, high-quality visual content, this platform taps into a lucrative market. The challenge lies in marketing and early-stage customer acquisition, but the potential for rapid scaling and low operational costs make it a promising business for long-term success. If executed well, this side hustle could easily grow into a full-time, highly profitable endeavour.

Do you agree with me? I’d love to know your thoughts, just reply to this email!

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👇️ Now it’s your turn to answer a question:

If you’d like to read last week’s debrief, covering an interview with Jenn, a side hustler running a website flipping business. If you didn’t catch it, feel free to check it out here.

Thank you all,

See you on Sunday! 👋